The Overseers of Complexity

1.
            I have an innate fascination for gadgetry
            Old constructions of brass and glass and numbers
            Designed to measure one thing or another.
            Enjoy compasses and sextants
            Things with gears
            Or wires that spin
            Something meant to determine location.
            The ritual adjustment of the divining tool appeals.
            If I can just get the alignment
            When the proper stars are up
            And present the correct offerings to the overseers of complexity
            Perhaps I will know where I am.

            I like small brown rocks for the same reasons.

2.
           Fits of homesickness come and go,
           Obeying no known rules of logic.
           I may be getting off of a plane from Oklahoma
           And already be missing the heavy, wet air
           Smell of terrapin
           Mine tailings
           The flood plain of the Neosho river.

3.

            Stirring the Creek water
            “A-m (a)”
            She said.

            Later I asked her,
            “Is it still
            Water
            When it comes out of the tap?”

4.

            While planting the garden
            I discover
            Four mason jars containing
            Words on paper.
            Pages torn from a
            Ledger book,
            Covered in
            Tiny writing
            Three seem to be poems
            One just says,
            “Beans”.